Another Hubber Asked Me to Change My Username, what now?

I'll give you a little background to the story here. I write on hubpages under the alias of Joe Macho. It was the first thing to pop in my head, and I find it more comfortable to write under this name than my real one. My problem now, is that I was contacted by another hubber and asked to change my username, simply because his real name is Joseph Macho. Is this something that I need to abide to? I registered on hubpages months before this hubber and have never had contact with him until today. What do I do from here?

If he has a contact link on his profile page, you can contact him through HubPages. Or you may have his direct email address. Otherwise, leave him a comment. Either way, be sure to include a link to this thread

Joe, since your hubs have been around a while, and their URLs are built with your username, changing your username would mean breaking ALL the links to those hubs, ALL the clout they've built up in search engines, and ALL the traffic your hubs are getting. All that hard work would be poured down the toilet, and you'd have to start from scratch. This means lost income. Besides which, you'd probably have to delete your account and create a new one. And the kicker? This other Joe Macho could waltz in and inherit the search engine love you've built up pointing to your user profile.

It would be completely unfair to you.

I've had the opposite happen. I've had an online handle, sepdet, that I've used on the internet since 1993. It was my misreading of an ancient Egyptian name... but once I discovered my mistake, I kept it, because people knew me by it. Alas, my mistake got propagated on the web, thanks to some of my articles getting copied and quoted. When I went to register my usual handle on Twitter, I found someone had claimed it.

Did I contact that person? Absolutely not, because I hadn't trademarked it. The web is first come, first served.

Keep your user name, which you cannot change except by closing your account and starting a new one under a different name. Put a notice on your profile page that this is not your real name. Ask the other person to contact HubPages if he has any concerns.

I agree, in principle. But the OP is asking how to resolve the situation, and such a notice could be a pragmatic solution. It is not totally irrelevant that the person with that name may be concerned about confusion.

Hi Joe Macho. What are the chances huh? You had already invested time and effort building 105 hubs here on Hubpages, which is an amazing feat btw, under that username. IMHO you own that username here on Hubpages. But best contact Hubpages as Patty Inglish suggested and let us know what they say.

I think some people need to realize that if they happen to have a name that's also a commonly used word (like "snow", for example), their name is going to show up being used as a word, rather than as a name. (I wonder if there's a real Joe Sixpack or Joeblow out there somewhere too.... ) My kids' father is a "Joe". He's so used to his name being thrown around for one purpose or another, he, himself, uses that name for similar purposes.

I don't think it's necessary to change your name, as Patty said there are thousands, maybe millions with the same name. It's not like you are plagiarizing the guy and even if he is using his real name it doesn't make a difference because you are "Joe" and he is "Joseph".

Hey think of it as "first come first serve" It was not like personal thing against the guy, and you are right, all the hard work you have done would have to be reversed in a sense. No way, not in my book. It is a lot of work, effort, and time to publish and be read under a name for a period of time.

If he wanted to use his real name he should have had the foresight to do that. When we had the chance to have individual domains I created one under my own name to avoid the possibility, no matter how rare, of the chance someone else would use my name.

I have had a similar problem from a company/individual that is unhappy with my user name and claimed copyright.. however you cannot copyright a name or a website URL..... So in the end.... No worries....

You have to consider the possibility of some of the trolls that are sending random legal notices to website owners to get the profit or pure enjoyment that comes from harassment. I know many cases where some website owners who got random take-down notices just because they don't agree with the content posted. My real name has more than 10k folks in the same state that matches occupation and interests like mine. It is really hard to for any random person on the internet to spot the right person from the lot. If any one person out of this lot asks me to remove content that matches with his life or interest, doesn't mean I have to respect that request. I simply don't care unless I get legal notice and that too valid one.

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